


And It's Your Fault

by richcreamerybutter



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: All that stuff, Class Differences, Friendship, Lectures, M/M, Slow Burn, University, eventual cardinal copia/papa emeritus iii, like really slow burn though, old cosy library, papa and copia aren't brothers, phd, pre-ghost, research interests, with lots of angst and tension, youngish copia, youngish papa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:26:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28750671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richcreamerybutter/pseuds/richcreamerybutter
Summary: A thirty-something Copia, keen to spend his career serving the church he loves so much, is awarded a scholarship. He moves away from the small community he grew up in to start studying for a doctorate at the most prestigious university in the country, where he meets one jovial young Emeritus brother - and learns beyond doubt that life really isn't fair.(Or 'Common People' by Pulp, but make it a super long Ghost fic)
Relationships: Cardinal Copia/Papa Emeritus III
Comments: 26
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OK, here's the plan:
> 
> Alternate weekends, or thereabouts, get a new chapter of this and I Had No Sense Of Living Without Aim. That one will run out first, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there, right?
> 
> I've also taken massive liberties with the nature of the church as depicted by Ghost chapters, as well as with PhDs in general, because neither are the core of the story, they're just part of it, if that makes sense. Allow me a little artistic license and we'll be fine!
> 
> We're in this for the long haul. If you're along for the ride, hello. I hope you enjoy yourself. It's quite a lot different to anything I've written on here so far and borrows from some of my favourite books, films, plays and songs about inequality using my two favourite Satan popes, and let's leave it there and let the story do the talking from now on.

\- PART ONE -

I shouldn't have been panicking over a book.

It was an easily solvable problem. If this shop didn't stock it, another one might. I could probably order it in for collection later. If they weren't able to get hold of it in time for the beginning of term, no doubt there would be copies available in the university library to peruse. On a rational level, I knew I would not be thrown off my doctorate for not having one textbook.

But I was far too tense to think rationally.

In two days, I would be registering onto my PhD in Theistic Satanism at the most prestigious religious university in Italy. The prospect was a wonderful one. An opportunity I had never thought would present itself to me had appeared in my life at the exact right time, an opportunity that would elevate me spiritually and professionally. There was nothing about it that should be making me feel so anxious, when you phrased it in that way. I deserved this. I knew it, though I would never go around saying such proud things aloud. But not only that - I _wanted_ it, too. Even though it meant a leave of absence from work, and moving to a new city alone, the benefits of this qualification would outweigh these drawbacks a thousandfold.

Yet I was still standing in the queue in this book shop, shuffling from foot to foot and pulling on my lower lip to the point of pain to keep myself in the moment. Breathing had become unnatural. I almost had to force myself to do it. In through the nose, out through the mouth, like my body had forgotten how. I focused on the very real aroma of the books, normally a comfort in any other situation.

I would _not_ be thrown off my doctorate for not having one textbook …

'Can I help you?' The woman behind the counter was friendly-looking enough, when it was my turn to step up. Her voice, addressing me, was just about enough to ground me. I offered her a smile in return.

'Good afternoon,' I said, and her face softened even more. 'I have just looked for a book in the philosophy section and I couldn't find it, so I assume that means you do not have it in stock, but I was wondering if perhaps you were able to source a copy of _Biblical Interpretation_ by –?'

'Ah, yes. We sold our last one a couple of days ago, I'm afraid.' She sounded full of genuine regret, as though giving me a dire medical prognosis. 'It's the time of year when a lot of students come in to pick up their textbooks, so we do have some on order …'

'When will they be back in stock?'

The voice was not my own, but it was coming from somewhere very close by. I turned to see the man who had been waiting in the queue behind me leaning in right over my shoulder to join in our conversation, a curious frown playing about his lips. The woman smiled at him, too, while I shuffled out of his way. He was so close I could smell his aftershave, all woody vanilla and sandalwood.

'They should be due in the morning,' the woman said, with a broad smile. It prompted one from him, too.

'Lovely. Thank you.' Then, to my surprise, he turned to me. 'Sorry for, ah – butting in, there. I have had my reading list for some time now, but typically I have only perused it at the last minute, so I am panicking somewhat. I never learn.'

He nodded to the woman – in fact, I could have sworn he winked at her – before making to leave. And beckoning me to follow him.

Which I did. I wasn't sure what else to do. I had to get out of the way of the next person in the queue, after all, but I was also rather curious as to whether I was about to meet a fellow student.

'You are beginning a course this week, too?' he said, as we strode past the rest of the queue towards the exit.

'I … yes,' I said. He was moving quickly so that I had to trot a little on alternate steps to keep up with him. 'Theistic Satanism …'

'PhD?'

'Yes.'

'Wonderful. As am I. Beginning to regret the decision now that our first day is approaching, but …' He sighed. 'I don't know where I am going, by the way. Do you fancy a coffee? It might be nice to get to know someone else before we start. I don't want to go in completely clueless.'

'Well … I would assume you _aren't_ going in completely clueless, otherwise you would not have been accepted onto the course,' I said.

I had been concerned about this. About the other candidates having shared knowledge that I did not possess, some other-level philosophical ideas from the more forward-thinking churches, but Bishop O'Neill had assured me that the old-fashioned universities were not like this. That everyone knew that, if you had been offered a place on a course there, you were intelligent and hardworking enough to be there, and there was therefore no need for anybody to try to one-up anybody else.

I tried to argue that it might be a different case for a recipient of the Vaso di Possibilità Scholarship, and he had gone strangely quiet before reminding me that nobody would know my PhD was funded this way unless I chose to tell them.

'You would think that, wouldn't you?' was all this man said. 'Anyway. Coffee. It is on me, since I have sort of dragged you here …'

We were, indeed, approaching a café, with the word _Orsonero_ and what looked like a polar bear graphic on the window. And he wasn't speaking as though I had an option – which, I found, I didn't mind.

Perhaps I was just pleased not to be going in completely clueless, too.

'What's your name?' I asked him, as we walked into the café and joined the line waiting to order. 'If I am going to allow you to buy me coffee, I should at least know that much.'

The corner of his lips quirked upwards. 'You can call me Terzo.'

I didn't miss the phrasing. _You can call me_ was subtly different from _my name is._ But I didn't pursue it any further. 'Copia,' I said. 'It's … good to meet you.'

Terzo held out his hand, and for the first time I noticed he was wearing a pair of white gloves. I took it, and he shook it firmly. A businesslike grip. He'd been taught well by somebody, at some point. 'Good to meet you too, Copia. Am I right in thinking that is a southern accent?'

'It is.'

'Hmm. You are a long way from home. I only come from just outside the city, I feel a bit of a phony next to you now.'

We moved along the line slightly as the people at the counter walked to a table with their drinks. The menu had been impossible to read from the angle I had been standing at, but as we drew parallel, being able to actually see it shed very little light. Words like _monorigine_ and _cortado_ that I was sure I had never heard, or read, in my life loomed over me, and when Terzo turned to ask me what I wanted, I bit my lip.

And the _prices_. For just one cup of coffee – if that was what these drinks even were.

'Erm … what would you recommend?' I said.

'Well. That depends on how you like your coffee, Copia.' He looked up at the menu, his forehead crinkled. 'Strong? Milky? Velvetty? Give me something to work with.'

That tightness in my chest from back in the line at the book shop was beginning to squeeze again, and the more words Terzo spouted, the more strength he gave it. What could I say that wouldn't make me sound uneducated?

'I just like coffee,' was what I settled on.

And perhaps he sensed something in my breathy tone and slightly garbled words, because he gave me a very small smile.

'Then we'll have two cortados,' he said.

Whatever a cortado was, I conceded, it was pretty good. We settled by the window with two small glass cups of rich coffee, strong but milky. I had to force myself not to drink mine all at once – it slipped down with ease. I could have had three in a row, had I not been so wary of the effect that much caffeine would have had on my nerves.

'Thank you very much for this,' I said instead, putting my glass back on its saucer next to its delicate little biscuit so I could nod down at it. 'It is very kind of you.'

'It's nothing,' Terzo said. 'If we are going to be course mates for the next three years, these things have a habit of evening themselves out. Do not worry about it.'

His audacity was almost overwhelming. Though he had given me no reason to be wary of him, there was nevertheless a part of me withholding myself from him. Perhaps he had never had a bad experience with another human being. Perhaps life, for him, had been so good that he felt able to buy a stranger coffee under the pretence that they would become friends without so much as a crumb of doubt entering his mind. I could have been anyone and Terzo didn't care.

He was still smiling at me over his coffee.

'How are you feeling about this, anyway? Prepared? Apart from not having _Biblical Interpretation_ to hand, of course …'

This, I could engage with. I took a bite of my little biscuit: it snapped with a clean break, and it tasted like caramel. 'Mm. Yes, I think so. I am perhaps starting rather later in life than I would have liked, so I wonder if I will feel like the old boy around here, but … I also wonder whether being a mature student will have its advantages. Twenty-one-year-old me didn't have the same focus as I do now, at any rate. He was rather more concerned with other pursuits.'

He was also in no position to even be considering education at this level.

'Oh, you don't have to be worried about your age,' Terzo said, with a deft wave of his hand. 'Many of the candidates have been practising for years and have undertaken study to further already flourishing careers. I know that is the case with me, certainly. Things are moving quickly in my ministry and I have finally decided I want to be ready in case opportunities arise for me. I don't think you will be the oldest person here … may I ask how old you are, in fact?'

It may have sounded rude, coming from somebody else, but that was not the impression he was giving me. 'Thirty-five,' I admitted.

' _No_ …' Terzo gestured at himself with both thumbs. 'Thirty-six! So you will most definitely _not_ be the oldest person here.'

I would have placed him in his late twenties. His exuberance, his energy, and quite simply the unblemished canvas of his face did not betray anything like his real age. And perhaps, had the roles been reversed, he would have voiced this thought in pleasant surprise

I, though, was not that sort of person. Not even in front of happy-go-lucky people like Terzo.

I just smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Copia turns up at university for his registration, meets another friend who's starting the same course, and wonders why he arrives at the side door rather than the grand front entrance.

The Università di Potenza Superiore had always looked idyllic to me, as a young boy. This was the institute that so many of the leaders I admired had studied at, after all, and in all my innocence I had my own notions that I would one day end up there to do my theology degree.

As I grew, though, I of course learned the truths about life. The truths that dictated which sorts of people got those chances, and which sorts of people were destined to stay in their home towns into adulthood without hope of moving anywhere else. I learned that so many of these truths concerned money, and I learned what money could buy you – not only in the real world, but also within the church.

Then came my first, and to date only, crisis of faith.

If Satan taught us to indulge and to look after our interests, how was it fair that some members of his church were more able to do this than others?

Bishop O'Neill had gone strangely quiet when I confessed these concerns to him late one night. We were sitting in the sanctuary, alone after tidying up following a late service, and our voices echoed off the walls.

'You have such an old soul, Copia,' he'd said eventually. 'Rarely have I had such conversations with someone so young. What has prompted this train of thought?'

'I just …' But I'd had to shake my head. 'I don't really know. I don't think there has been a prompt as much as a slow sort of realisation. I have grown up sheltered, after all. The life I imagined for myself back then is all just idealistic, is it not? Even my ambitions for my career, something I thought I aspired to out of selflessness, are idealistic. The path I wish to follow requires qualifications, and qualifications require … well. Money, unfortunately.'

Bishop O'Neill had taken a few moments. I'd heard his breath whistling heavy through his large, rather red nose.

'Copia,' he said. 'Forgive me if I am being presumptuous, but when you talk of your professional ambitions … am I to assume you want to enter the priesthood?'

I'd nodded. Though I had never specifically confessed this to anyone before, I had never kept it a secret, either. I spent enough time helping the clergy in our ministry that people suspected that was where my future lay. Looking after children during our big services, delivering food parcels to vulnerable congregants, even writing my own worship songs for our Dark Lord and playing them on the one beaten-up classical guitar we kept in the dusty narthex. It was simply the case of the years of expensive study that would hold me back.

Bishop O'Neill laid a hand on my shoulder.

'I am glad to hear it. I had been waiting for you to express your interest in concrete terms. It is rather a personal matter, you see, and I did not feel comfortable approaching you about it without due cause. But … well, now that you have …'

And he had explained that our church had some funding set aside for cases like mine. Cases, he'd said, of young, ambitious boys who showed dedication and an excellent work ethic being unable to put themselves through the required studies to enter the clergy. It might have been embarrassing, to have had that pointed out, but the prospect that I might be able to study for the job I had always dreamed of having was so exciting it quashed that. My situation was not a secret to Bishop O'Neill, after all. He had been nothing but good to me since I had come to live in the clergy house – something like what I imagined a father might have been like.

So I studied for my degree, and my MA, with this funding. Distance learning, of course, alongside my part-time duties within the ministry. The small pot of money could not extend to accommodation, food, travel, and those luxuries that students go away to university to experience. But I didn't mind. The qualification, and the springboard into the priesthood, were all I wanted. It did not matter to me that I wasn't attending an old-fashioned institution, wearing robes at formal dinners, and being plied with spirits on an early night out with my fraternity mates. I graduated without a lavish ceremony, but with an excellent classification.

So when I walked through the oak doors of the university on my way to register for the first day of term, the very building itself felt more like a symbol of some other plain of existence than simply the establishment providing me with the next stage of my theological education. No longer the thing of beauty from books, and the academic credits of my favourite Bishops and Cardinals. It was imposing. As though these bricks were daring me to defy them, to turn around and run straight back to the small ministry in which I was safe and comfortable.

This world did not belong to people like me.

My footsteps echoed in the vast corridors. I had expected to see more people, but aside from myself, only one or two were milling around. It was impossible to tell who was a student, a member of staff or even a visitor who had perhaps happened upon the building and popped inside to admire it. There had been no receptionist to prevent this from happening, at any rate, and I inwardly marvelled again that I was attending the sort of university that ordinary people took photographs of when they came past.

Registration opened in five minutes. Where was everyone?

The next person I saw, I stopped. She was wearing a neat pencil skirt and blouse, and I couldn't see a name badge or an ID lanyard or anything along those lines, but I had never noticed anything like this on anyone at all, so her presentation was as good an indicator as any that she might know what she was doing.

'Excuse me,' I said. She had almost passed me by the time I found the courage to speak, but she paused to turn, and the smile she gave me was warm enough. 'I am here to register onto my PhD course, do you know where room … erm …' I had had the number in my head a moment ago: I pulled the letter I had received weeks earlier from my pocket, frowning at its crumpled state. 'Room six eleven is?'

She glanced down at the letter as though cross-checking my story, then bit her lip.

'I _think_ ,' she said, 'that it's on the sixth floor. That is all I can glean from the number. But I can't find stairs or a lift or anything that might get us up there …'

'Oh – you don't work here?'

She glanced up at me with a playful smile. 'You didn't ask me because you thought I _did_ work here? Oh, that's wonderful!' Her voice was merry enough that she really did make my silly error feel wonderful. 'No – no, I'm registering, too! Maybe I should've done a test run of the building, though, because I feel rather stupid that I can't even find my way to the very first room we need to go to …'

The pair of us observed the corridor around us as one. Still, we were alone in the midst of oak panelling and ancient portraits.

'Were you as surprised as I was that there's no one else here?' she said quietly. 'I was starting to wonder whether I'd got the wrong day …'

'Me, too,' I sighed. 'But if I have, so have you, so at least we can share in the embarrassment if we've made a mistake.'

'If two of us have made the same mistake, that's _their_ mistake,' she said: then, she suddenly shrugged herself upright and held out her hand. 'I'm Izzy, by the way. I mean, I'm Isabella, but … but it's Izzy.'

'Copia.' We shook hands. Her grip was loose, but she held on to me for much longer than Terzo had in the coffee shop. 'Theistic Satanism?'

'Yes! And you're the first person I've met who's also studying it. Now if we can find a staircase, we might meet some others, too …'

It turned out that the door by which we had entered the building was a sort of side door. Once we started walking the perimeter, we found a main entrance, complete with polish-scented foyer, reception desk and brisk receptionist who pointed us towards the giant double staircase as though we were stupid. Izzy tried to tell him, through nervous giggles, that we hadn't come into the building through this door, otherwise we would obviously have noticed the stairs, but this wizened man had no interest in her explanation.

Six floors of climbing rendered conversation more difficult the higher we got, and by the time we were spilling out onto a red-carpeted landing, the only sound either of us could make was our heavy breathing. We caught one another's eyes with wheezy smiles.

The room, when we found it, was a large teaching space, set up with desks that divided us up by surname. Much like the rest of the building, there were only one or two people already here. Izzy and I split off to find our own names – fortunately for me, the man behind the desk I approached was far friendlier than the man who had assumed we had no concept of stairs.

'We thought we had the wrong day,' I told him, when my details had been registered and I was officially a student of the Università di Potenza Superiore. 'It is so quiet around the building …'

He nodded. 'It'll be a miracle if we get half of the names on our lists ticked off today. I will be in early on the first teaching day catching up when they realise they can't get into their lectures unless they are registered students.'

'But why don't they come when they are supposed to?'

The man looked at me as though the answer had been in my letter underneath the room number. 'They all drink too much at the Michaelmas Eve feast.'

His words did not enlighten me any further. When I mentioned them to Izzy she, too, had no idea what he had been talking about.

'Some local custom, then, no doubt,' I said. 'I mean … sorry, I'm being presumptuous, but you don't sound like you are from around here, either? I assume it is obvious enough that I am not, anyway.'

She shook her head. 'Not presumptuous at all. Your accent is the most familiar thing I have come across here so far, Copia.'

I was right: both of us had travelled north for the course. I kept my wonderings about her career aspirations, and indeed her background, inside my mind, though. The idea that somebody might ask me still had my stomach in knots, and I did not want to inflict that kind of stress on anyone else. Least of all one of the only friendly faces I had up here as yet.

We spent a happy enough half hour exploring the grounds around the main university building. The whole time we were outside, we saw three other people. One of them was even wearing a mitre – so he must have been a member of staff.

'Strange that they even put on a registration morning,' I said, when he had vanished behind a door. 'If nobody turns up to register …'

'It'll be formality,' Izzy said. 'Everything is, at these old universities. All pomp and circumstance. We just ruined it by coming in at the trade entrance.'

'Yes, I wonder how we managed that?' I said. We were standing in the main quad in front of the building now, and I had no idea how I could have approached the building from any other angle: this was difficult to miss. The tree-lined drive, the ornamental grass that could have been painted the perfect shade of green, and the marble fountain in the centre were straight out of the pages of the prospectus and the establishing shots of many a crime drama filmed in the city. 'This is … for want of a better word, rather obvious, is it not?'

Izzy just let out a little snort.

The figure in dark glasses caught my eye straight away, if only because of his urgency. He was making his way up the drive as though his upper body were more keen to get to its destination than his legs. When my eyes were trained on him, though, his three-piece suit and jewelled Ray Bans kept them there. This was a man who had dressed for some occasion other than walking into a university building late in the morning, and half-formed images of drunken revelling surfaced in my mind. Perhaps the glasses had indeed been employed to stave off the unpleasant ill-effects of too much wine the previous night. It was not that bright out here, after all.

And as he approached, he looked awfully familiar. I kept watching him, safe in the knowledge that he was focused on the university building and not Izzy and I, standing by the fountain, until I worked out where I knew him from. It was Terzo – a formal version, a version who meant business.

'Oh, hell, I wondered whether he would be here,' Izzy murmured.

She hadn't noticed me watching him myself. 'Do you know him?' I said, keeping my voice at the same low volume for fear it would travel in the still air around us.

Her eyes grew pointedly round. 'Well – he's the youngest, isn't he? He must be about that age?'

I shook my head. Terzo was nearing us now, and I lowered my voice further still. 'I … the youngest what?'

And she let out a chuckle, albeit a very nervous chuckle. 'Shit, you aren't joking, are you?' she said. 'He's _so_ obviously an Emeritus.'

Oh, _cazzo_.

Terzo Emeritus, of the Diocese of Emeritus. The richest, most powerful diocese in the country, whose leader – Terzo's father, Papa Nihil – was based in a large church just outside the city.

He only noticed us when he drew level. To my surprise, he tipped his sunglasses down, and gave us a practised, lopsided smile.

'Morning, Copia,' he said. He nodded at Izzy, then pushed his glasses back up his nose and continued on his way.

When he was safely inside, Izzy turned to me. Her bottom jaw was grazing the collar of her blouse.

'You _know_ him?'

I shook my head rapidly. 'I mean – I don't _know_ him, I just … we only met the other day, we went for coffee, that was all. I obviously had no idea who he _was_.'

'He didn't tell you?'

'No! He just said … well he didn't really say anything like that, we just made small talk, I –'

Izzy laid a hand on my arm. 'Calm down, Copia! I'm not accusing you of anything, don't worry! I'm just saying. If you can get him onside, he's …'

She seemed to struggle with the right words for a moment. She watched the door Terzo had walked through, perhaps wondering if he would return to introduce himself properly so that she didn't have to.

When he didn't appear, she sighed quietly.

'He's a powerful friend to have,' she said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Term starts for real, and Copia introduces the only two friends he's made so far to one another. Izzy's slightly less shy about pointing out Terzo's wealth, but despite that, the two of them seem to hit it off.

The real start of term saw us meeting most of our fellow students for the first time.

I had spent a few days calming down to a point where I almost felt settled in my new surroundings. Without anything formal to attend, I didn't have anything formal to concern myself with, and the tightness that seemed to have been ever-present within me since I had received the news that I had been awarded the scholarship eased off enough to allow me to explore the city alone – picking up my last textbook on the way – and familiarise myself with the place I would be calling home for the next three years.

Without that pressure, I felt able to see it as though looking at it in a brochure all over again.

The shops and cafés. The neoclassical architecture. And the _people_. More people walked past me in half an hour, as I sat on a park bench late one morning just observing, than I often saw in a day back home.

I longed for this sense of ease and anticipation as I made my way to Izzy's address the day of our welcome seminar. I couldn't seem to gather enough saliva in my mouth to swallow, my throat choking on itself as I slurped from a bottle of water filled up earlier in my own kitchen. I had met my flatmate for the first time, too. All I had known about him until that point was that his name was Alessandro, and even after stumbling across him as he made his sleepy way between his bedroom and our shower room in white Y-fronts, that was virtually all I knew about him even still. He did have a faint outline of abs, though, which I found myself ruminating on for a little too long after I left.

Izzy, it turned out, was renting a room in a house just two streets away from my own. No wonder we had both spilled into university from the wrong angle. It took us a while to work out how to enter the grounds from the same entrance everybody else seemed to be able to find so naturally.

'You know what it is, don't you?' she said, once we were sure we were in the right building and heading in the right direction for our seminar.

'What what is?'

'The fact that we have to wiggle around a lot to find the main entrance to uni? I only worked it out when you told me where you'd come from this morning. It's because most of the other students live in the fancy on-campus accommodation. We don't.'

I hadn't considered this, but now she had said it, vague memories surfaced of perusing the prospectus and being more than a little disgusted at the prices of the university's own accommodation. I took a long gulp of my water.

'We're shunted off to the side so we don't spoil the carefully curated image,' I said, and Izzy laughed.

'I knew you weren't one of them,' she said.

I didn't need to ask what she meant by 'one of them'. 'How could you tell?' I said.

'I just … could? I don't know how to explain it. There's a vibe they give off, a way of talking, everything. A haircut, even.'

Terzo's glossy, floppy locks graced the forefront of my mind for a moment. 'It wouldn't suit me, that hair,' I said.

'I hate it anyway,' said Izzy. 'It confuses me. I always used to end up flirting with toffs when I was younger, thinking they were somehow edgy because they had slightly longer hair. It was such a disappointment when it only ever turned out they were posh.' She shook her head. 'Go on, then. How does someone like you end up here? You realise we are never going to fit in the way they want us to, don't you?'

Another concept that I had been trying to push to the back of my mind for fear that it would make my anxiety even worse than it already was. 'Of course,' I said, 'but why should we let that stop us? I …'

I glanced around the corridor. We weren't far away from the seminar room, and unlike the morning of our registration, we were sharing the building with a handful of other students.

'I'm here on the Vaso di Possibilità Scholarship,' I said, under my breath. 'Without that, there was no way I would ever be able to even dream about a doctorate. But I'm not making that information public, you understand.'

'I understand completely,' said Izzy, with a small smile. 'But I did wonder. And so will some of the others, no doubt.'

Of course they would. Even out here, as friends met so they would have someone to go into the room with, I could see it in the way they greeted each other and the takeaway coffee cups they held in their hands.

'If you're interested,' Izzy said, lowering her voice to match mine. 'I wouldn't be here if my father hadn't died. He didn't leave much of an inheritance but combined with my savings I've just about managed to cover it. I'm hoping the career progression it affords me ends up worth it.'

'Honestly? A woman with the most prestigious theological doctorate one can attain?' I nudged her with my elbow. 'If I were in any sort of position of power, I would hire you right away.'

She beamed, and somehow, my twisting stomach seemed to unfurl ever so slightly.

There plush red seats arranged in rows inside the room, with little gaggles of people peppered around so that it was already tricky to navigate them and tricky to work out where one was supposed to sit without imposing on someone's established group. How were there so many cliques already? I had never seen 99% of these people in my life before. Izzy's friendship, if I could even call it that since we had met precisely twice, was nothing more than happenstance. Some of these men were talking like old friends …

Then I caught one of them – sitting alone with a takeaway coffee cup – waving over at me.

'Copia! Good morning! I was wondering when I would see you.'

Terzo, dressed much like almost everyone else in the room, patted the empty chair beside him. 'Come on, sit with me. And bring your friend. I'm sorry, I don't know your name?'

'It's Izzy.' She was brimming with confidence despite the exalted positions this man's family held within the church, and I had to be thankful that I hadn't possessed that knowledge when he had practically transferred his cologne to my neck in the bookshop. I settled in the seat next to him, Izzy beside me, and Terzo leant around me to take Izzy's hand and kiss it. His lips met her knuckles directly in front of my chest.

'Izzy,' said Terzo softly. 'It is a pleasure to meet you.'

His rich tones could have been flirtatious or they could have been the way men typically introduced themselves to women here. I had no idea.

'Terzo,' he said, and Izzy wiggled her eyebrows.

'I know. Emeritus, right?'

For some reason, he shot me an uneasy sideways glance before he gave her his response.

'Yes,' he said. 'That's right. How did you know?'

'How could I _not_ know? You're kind of notorious, after all,' Izzy said. She was still smiling at him, but Terzo was no longer matching her expression, and she didn't seem to have noticed. The mismatch in their faces either side of me, though, had me avoiding both of their gazes. The embarrassment may have been second-hand, but it was still palpable, as Izzy ploughed on about how she had known straight away, when she'd first laid eyes on him in the courtyard the other day, and how flattered she was (in a voice full of jovial irony) that he'd deigned to allow her to sit so close to him without quizzing her on who her mother and father were.

She was joking. Of course. But Terzo did not appear to be in on it.

'Well,' he said, when he was finally afforded a break in her flow in which to speak, 'let it never be forgotten that you were the one who brought my surname up first, Izzy. I didn't offer it freely, nor do I have any interest in yours. Despite what you may have heard, that is … that is not what I am here for.'

I would have said something, perhaps to slice through the tension that had built between the three of us, but a hush fell over the room as someone stepped up to the lectern. I recognised him as one of the panel who had interviewed me. Professor De Stefano. We had bonded over our ideas on how to bring ministry outside of the church.

I could have sworn he made deliberate, kind eye contact with me as he made to address us all.

'Good morning, everybody,' he said, and the last few voices that had been attempting to continue whispered conversations fell silent. 'Welcome to the Università di Potenza Superiore.'

And the speech he welcomed us with reminded me of why I had taken so many difficult steps to be in the position I was in.

He didn't talk of reputations or riches or old boys' clubs, but of hard work and hope and the difference we were able to make, if we so wished, in the communities we served. He talked of looking forward, of meeting like-minded people who would strengthen us and the strength that we, in turn, would bring to others. He talked of the exceptional applications, interviews and past work we all must have done in order to even be here in the first place – which reminded me irresistibly of Bishop O'Neill's words of encouragement back home.

Perhaps, then, I would fit in. Perhaps one's family background, or lack thereof, was second to their work ethic, their tenacity, and quite simply their well-earned place at the university.

There followed the general housekeeping, including timetabled seminars and other events of interest that would be happening throughout the academic year. I sat upright throughout all of this, unlike so many of the others, I noticed. Izzy and I also appeared to be the only people who had brought notebooks and pens to record any of this information. Nobody looked embarrassed or flustered that they were unable to write anything down.

The little groups re-converged once we were free to move again. Part of me waited for someone to sweep Terzo away from us, but nobody came, and he didn't move off to find anybody else, either. Rather he led us to a coffee machine that I hadn't noticed on arrival, distracted as I'd been by his enthusiastic waving. It wasn't the sort of machine that distributes hot water into plastic cups. There were real cups, and pods, labelled with words I only vaguely recognised from the city's cafes. Prickly heat rose from my neck.

'Well,' Terzo said, choosing a pod and sliding it into the machine. I assumed, from his deft actions, that he probably had these in the kitchens at the ministry. 'Here we go, I suppose. Do you fancy exploring the campus? After we've had a drink, of course.'

'Actually, I'm supposed to be meeting a friend for lunch,' Izzy said. 'She's at Bocconi.'

'Bocconi, huh? A business tycoon. I like it.' Terzo winked at me. 'Just you and I then, Copia, it seems. What are you drinking?'

I swallowed. 'Well – what do you have there? That smells amazing.'

I wasn't lying, at least. Terzo pulled the finished drink out from underneath the machine, and through the glass I could see it swirling, milk and syrup finding their place within one another. 'Vanilla macchiato. OK, then.' He clicked a pod and a cup into place for me, too, and as the machine started to grind and whir, Izzy said her goodbyes. Leaving me alone with one of the most influential clergymen in the world.

Not that you would think it, watching him humming to himself as he waited for my drink to trickle down into the cup. I hadn't noticed until now, either, but he was wearing the same sunglasses as he had had on for registration, only this time, they were pushing his hair away from his face.

He gave me a very humble-looking smile when he handed me the cup, too.

'Thanks,' I said, and he held up his own drink like a glass of wine.

' _Cin cin._ One of these days we will have to go for a real drink, though, Copia. I do not feel as though I have properly got to know a man until I have seen him tell a story of his youth after one or two beverages, would you agree?'

I nodded, electing to omit that wine with dinner was about all I knew how to drink.

'Although I did wonder why you weren't at the Michaelmas Eve festivities,' he said. 'Unless you were, and I merely lost you in the fray?'

The “fray”. The night had been busy, and rowdy, enough that I could have been lost in it – yet I had never even heard about it until after it had taken place.

'I wasn't lost in anything,' I admitted. 'I simply wasn't there. I didn't know it was happening.'

This threw him. He took a few sips from his coffee, leaving enough space in the cup to swirl the rest of the hot, sweet liquid around thoughtfully.

'Oh,' was all he could come up with. 'Well. I'm sorry about that, Copia. You missed a good night.'

I was sure I had.

I was starting to suspect, though, that a “good” night around here was not the sort of night people like me tended to be invited to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toff = British slang for posh person!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With university starting, Copia ruminates on the subject of his PhD, and he's shown the exact sort of library he's always imagined himself studying in.
> 
> He also meets another Future Papa, and this one, he's a bit less keen on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad we're getting a bit meatier and a bit character-er. I feel bad that the exposition bits took so long, if this were a book you would have been able to just whizz through them!

I had always known my research interests lay within community outreach. I considered myself lucky to belong to a church whose model of this was exemplary, if underfunded. There were so many out there who practised nothing of what they preached, and at worst seemed to exist only to uphold a sort of image of themselves.

I did wonder whether Terzo's church was one of these. Why else would so many people have heard of them? I wasn't sure what they did that made them so famous, yet they were. Somehow.

Perhaps like those people who are nothing more than their image. When Terzo came to sit with me in our first seminar, I paid more attention than usual to the details of his outfit. The way he wore his hair. That damn cologne, so evocative of that first meeting in the book shop. Everything about him was very … _him._ Was everything about him also a mark of his church? Was he representing them like a brand ambassador? How else had Izzy recognised him as an Emeritus before she'd heard a single word from his mouth?

'Hey,' he said: then, as if reading my mind, 'no Izzy today?'

'She's in a seminar on medieval nuns,' I said.

'Oh. Interesting.' He settled himself down, and I realised he was carrying another cup of coffee – or maybe it was the same cup, and it was simply glued to the palm of his hand. 'I'm not entirely sure what my research interests are, yet, if I am honest. Perhaps I should read up on nuns, too.'

'Well … what did you talk about at your interview?' I said.

He raised his eyebrows. 'Interview?'

I realised, of course, what this meant. And the implications of the fact that he had not had an interview hit me like a bulldozer. I turned away from him before he could see the shock that I was finding so hard to conceal.

Which meant that he, too, must have been realising that I _had_ had an interview. How he processed this information, though, was anyone's guess.

'I mean,' he said, after a minute or so: his voice was scratchy, and he cleared his throat. 'I suppose, with my father developing the church the way he is doing, I will end up writing my thesis on ministry in action. You know – taking the church _outside_ of the church, that sort of thing.'

'Hmm.' OK – he had piqued my interest, and I allowed myself to move with the conversation and leave my uncomfortable thoughts behind. 'That's what I want to study, too. My church has become the centre of our community and I want to make sure that I am doing everything I can to best serve its congregants. Their needs are holistic, after all. Spirituality is only one part of the service modern churches provide.'

'Oh, I agree,' Terzo said. He was nodding enthusiastically and I waited for him to say something more, but he just looked at me as though he were doing the same thing.

'Good. I –' He had thrown me. He was smiling as though my words were a sermon he was feeling very moved by. 'Erm – you said – something about your father's developments?'

Now was my chance to grill him on his family, at least, without arousing too much suspicion. The long line that appeared on his forehead suggested otherwise, but he answered me without hesitation. 'Yes. Have you heard? He is pioneering rather an ambitious project … or, I suppose, re-pioneering it, since he used to do it himself back in the 60s?'

I shook my head, and he broke into a grin. 'Oh! I do enjoy telling people who don't know. He is forming – re-forming, should I say – a touring church who will take Satan's message on the road all around the world. Using music, of course. So people will pay to see a concert rather than attend a sermon, but they will be one and the same, d'you understand?'

'Like singing hymns?' I said.

'Not exactly. Have you ever heard of Ghost?' He looked a bit disappointed when I shook my head, but he ploughed on nonetheless. 'Well, that was what this church was called when he fronted them. Back in the 60s, of course. I don't know if he will revive the same band, but they were huge. They rode the back of the Satanic Panic, you know? So they attracted a lot of controversy, and therefore a lot of new followers, and it worked incredibly well.'

It was clever, I had to admit. 'And he is going to set up a … a band?'

'He is talking about it. In fact, he talked about it so much, very pointedly, in front of me that I ended up applying for my PhD. Then he stopped, somehow. He can never just say what he means, my father. He is not that sort of person.' He paused for a harsh laugh. 'So … here I am, I suppose. It is a good idea, though, you have to admit. Satanism and rock music are the perfect bedfellows. Hell, Satanism and music in general. We sing in church, do we not?'

I nodded, thinking of the old guitar back home that I was now wishing I had brought with me.

'So we'll be able to support one another throughout this whole thing! That's very reassuring. I think I would be very happy to have someone like you onside, Copia,' Terzo said. 'Although you've drawn the short straw with me, huh?'

The horrible thing was – and I would never have admitted it to him – I knew exactly what he meant. Even though he was obviously joking I could see where this joke was rooted. Quiet, nervous Copia, somehow finding himself stuck to this obnoxious, flamboyant man who had arrived here from a position of great influence. Who I was starting to suspect could win anyone over with his charm, where I had kept myself to myself thus far and had only made two sort-of friends because both of them had taken the lead when we had met.

I knew what he meant, but I didn't agree. We were different, that was true. But we might be different enough that we complemented one another.

Of course, it was too early to tell. But I smiled.

'I have not,' I said truthfully. 'I can already tell that during our late-night library sessions, you will be the one keeping both of us awake.'

My response delighted him: his whole demeanour brightened. 'I do have rather an excess of energy. And I do love coffee, of course! So perhaps you are right. Have you seen the libraries yet, anyway? I suspect a fellow like you will be spending a lot of time in them.'

'I was taken to the main library when I toured the campus.'

'Oh – that's just the one they put in the brochures. I know better libraries, Copia, trust me. What are you doing after the seminar? I will take you.'

Did the man ever shut up? 'I am doing nothing. You know that.'

'No, you are not doing _nothing._ You are coming to the nicest library I know.' He winked at me, just as our seminar leader bade us good afternoon, and we settled in to listen.

*

I had to concede, when we got there, that this was now the nicest library I knew, too.

Where the main library was wall-to-wall shelves, study rooms lined with computers, and staff on hand to point you to any book that took your fancy – literally, it was such an important library that it had the right to request a copy of any book that had ever been published – this one was like something from a story of witches and dragons. I imagined I would have to bring most of my books here from elsewhere, as the selection was nowhere near as large, but its limits were also undoubtedly its advantages.

It was empty of people, at any rate.

We still lowered our voices as Terzo led me around, past plush armchairs perched beside small tables with old-fashioned candle lamps built in and gothic windows and a huge fireplace, empty as of right then, but that was lit early in the morning when the weather grew chilly and maintained by porters well into the night.

'So I am reliably informed that this is the best place to concentrate,' Terzo said, as we came to rest in the two armchairs closest to the grate. 'And if I'm honest, I think you suit it in here. You look very cosy even now, sitting in that chair. It _becomes_ you.'

I glanced around our surroundings with a tiny, shy smile. 'I know what you mean …'

'Is this not what you were picturing when you always imagined yourself studying theology? Tell me it wasn't. I dare you.'

'No … no, you're right. It pretty much was.' I leant back in the chair and closed my eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths. The smell of the fire conjured itself up inside my nostrils, along with the very real smell of old paper, leather and musty furniture. I preferred summer but sitting here, I wondered how comfortable it must have been to be sitting beside that fire in the depths of winter, knowing you were warm and safe while the weather outside turned unpleasant and biting. 'How do you know about this place?'

'My brothers. They both came here before me – well, my middle brother is still here. He finishes this year.'

I forgot, from time to time, that other people had those family members who could pass nuggets of wisdom along without it being an effort.

'Do you have siblings?' Terzo said. Again, I felt the mildly uncomfortable sensation that comes with someone touching on your thoughts before you have spoken them aloud.

'No. There is only me.'

 _There is only me_ was ambiguous enough. And he said nothing more. He, of all people, must have understood the need to be able to give vague answers without challenge from time to time.

He wouldn't have been able to say more, anyway, because at that moment there was a rap on the window. Terzo was facing it, and he frowned: opposite him, I had to swivel my whole body, and I almost jarred my neck doing so. There was an elderly man peering through one of the arched windows, wearing a frown to match its shape. He mouthed something at us, but I couldn't for the life of me work out what he was trying to get across.

'The hell is he saying …?' Terzo muttered to me, and I shook my head. The man was just gaping like a fish, over and over again, and the two of us could do nothing but stare in bewilderment as his message got no clearer.

' _It's closed_ ,' he said eventually – he must have been shouting it, in all fairness, but through the old stone walls we could only hear him at a normal volume. ' _You need to leave_.'

'Oh. _Oh._ ' Terzo raised a hand, smiling at the window, and he made to stand up. 'Yes. Sorry. I didn't realise, the door was open so I just took my friend inside to show him around. We'll … we'll go now. Sorry again.'

The man didn't seem satisfied with the explanation: he did leave, but he was shaking his head at our apparent stupidity. I made to stand up too, but Terzo was sinking back into his seat.

'Where are you going?' he said.

'Where –?' I froze. 'We aren't supposed to be here? He just told us the library is shut.'

'If the library was truly shut, they should have closed the doors and put a sign up,' Terzo said. He crossed his left calf over his right thigh and shuffled his bum around so that he was buried even further in the armchair than ever. 'It isn't as though we are here to trash the place, after all. We are merely sitting, having civilised conversation.'

'But we can do that anywhere else. What if we're caught?'

'They ask us to leave again, and perhaps then I'll consider it. We can say we misunderstood the evil caretaker. Ha!' He slapped his thigh and threw his head back. 'I've just realised! He reminded me of every Scooby-Doo villain there has ever been. Now I have even less reason to listen to him …'

But my stomach was unsettled, and I knew full well why. It was a reason I was able to fix, and all I had to do was exactly what I was told.

I stood up, properly this time, and Terzo frowned up at me. 'Copia?'

'You can stay, but I'm leaving,' I said, with a swallow. 'I'm sorry, I can't afford to break the rules before we have even got started …'

'It's barely even a _rule_ ,' Terzo said.

'I'm sorry,' I said again. 'I just … I'm not in the habit of defying people like this. Perhaps it's a fault in my own personality but I'm not ready to make a name for myself as a troublemaker. I'll see you later.'

'No – no. Please.' He stood up too, so quickly that he almost tripped over his own ankles. 'It's OK. I will come with you, wherever you are going. But I would hardly call sitting in a closed library _troublemaking_.'

You could tell he was slightly pissed off, and I did feel bad. I would happily have sat there all day if the caretaker hadn't interrupted us. But he had, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to relax again knowing that if someone else tried to turf us out, we couldn't rightly plead ignorance.

It must have been nice, to have that sort of confidence. To know you could simply charm your way out of anything. Even if the misdemeanour was this insignificant.

'I'm being pathetic, I know,' I said. I tried to laugh as we left the library behind, but I was sure he could hear how forced it was. 'Maybe we can try it again this time next year, when I am an old hand.'

'I'll set an alarm.' He raised a small smile. 'Never mind. Come back to my room for a bit? We can have coffee there, at least?'

I could only assume that Terzo lived in the _fancy accommodation on-campus_ , as Izzy had referred to it, and I was curious as to what this sort of accommodation looked like. He did indeed lead me out of the main university building through the main entrance, and we spilled out into the courtyard that graced so many prospectuses. He had such a brisk, purposeful gait that I almost had to trot to keep pace with him – but it was only minutes before we had arrived at another building, with a door protected with a small mechanism into which Terzo typed four digits: it beeped, and the door clicked open.

'It's funny, seeing such technology on such an old building,' I remarked. Terzo didn't say anything. I didn't blame him. It had been a pointless thing to say.

The block was one of flats, but the only thing that gave this away were the numbers on all of the doors: the interior was as grand as those of any of the university buildings. The smell was even the same, furniture polish and the unmistakeable must that so many old buildings like this seemed to share. Terzo led me along the first corridor we came across to room nine.

I had always pictured student accommodation much like my own: small, in a state of some disrepair, and smelling slightly of cabbage.

This, then, knocked me for six.

It was a studio apartment, but it was also the most luxurious studio apartment I could ever have imagined. In complete contrast to the original walls outside, this place must have undergone a very recent overhaul. The fixtures were gleaming, the furniture minimalist but expensive-looking. Wooden floors, with a dark purple rug beside his king-sized bed. Even the air freshener was classier than your average pine, some sort of spicy affair that could almost have been sold in a chemist as cologne.

I couldn't bite back the little sigh of awe, and Terzo smiled, folding his arms.

'They aren't bad, these places, are they?' he said. 'Which building are you in?'

'I – erm. I'm in private accommodation, actually. If you head off-campus in the other direction, it's about a ten-minute walk.'

I didn't specify the area, but I think he knew. 'Well, perhaps next year we will share, huh?'

The idea of living with Terzo didn't spook me, strangely enough. The idea of having to compromise my budget with his did, though.

He made us a coffee, this time using a cafetière so that what we drank ended up much more closely resembling the sort of coffee I was used to from home. It was reassuring, I found, not having to contend with fancy words and syruppy sweetness, but I still felt out of place beside him on his loveseat.

When, I wondered, was he going to realise I was nothing more than scum from the south in comparison with the line of Emeritus?

Not that you would have been able to tell, as we chatted about the contents of today's seminar. He did have some interesting ideas about ministry, and I was able to share parts of my own history with the church without feeling as though he were mentally picking me apart. In fact, he seemed intrigued. Particularly when it came to my work with the young people of our congregation, and how I drew them in with music.

'See? That –' He was pointing at me with a forefinger. 'That is what I feel many churches are getting worse at these days, not better. Connecting with younger generations. I am getting on in years myself and I can feel myself losing touch, which is a damned shame. I must do something about that. They are the future of our communities, after all.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Precisely. I know how you feel – I never thought that being in one's thirties would make one feel old, but …'

We sighed, then caught one another's eyes and smiled.

'You surprised me, when you told me you were as old as all that,' I admitted. 'I had you down as much younger than me.'

I'd learned enough about him to know that being a little impertinent probably wouldn't overstep a mark the way it might do with other people. He didn't appear to take any offence, at any rate.

'You say that as though it is a compliment. Normally, when people tell me I am stupid and juvenile, they are insulting me.'

'Stupid and juvenile? You used those words, not me. I simply said you seemed younger than I am.'

'Well. Surely we are only as old as our souls. Perhaps my soul has seen a lot less of the world than yours, Copia.'

This was too deep for a late September morning – and surprisingly deep for him. I had to think back, to what I'd told him about myself, and remind myself that I hadn't told him very much at all. He had just said something that, probably by coincidence, explained some of the differences that he had noticed in our personalities so far.

Or perhaps he was deeper than I was giving him credit for.

There was a knock at his door not long after this. This knock was less jarring: his eyes simply flicked over to it, and he called out that the door was unlocked. He must have had plenty of friends, I thought, to assume that whoever was knocking was a welcome visitor.

Another man, with a similar stature and air to Terzo, strode in: he even had the same walk. His brother? He was holding a mobile phone with his other hand over the mouthpiece, and he was frowning.

'Oh! Secundo,' Terzo said, raising his coffee – his second cup. 'Meet my new friend! This is Father Copia – he shares many of our opinions on Satanism, I think you will like him. Copia, this is my brother, Secundo.'

'Pleased to meet you,' Secundo said, with a short nod. 'I'm sorry to interrupt, but do you have ten minutes? Father is on the phone and he wants to talk to both of us.'

Terzo glanced at me, biting his lip. 'Erm …'

But I stood up. 'It's OK. It's fine. It sounds important, I'll see you later.'

I didn't think it was an issue, to leave him to his family duties, but he was gazing at me with wide eyes. 'I'm really sorry. We can continue this conversation another time, if you like. I was enjoying myself …'

'Of course we can. I am not leaving forever, don't worry.'

He walked me to the door. I could sense Secundo's impatience from the other side of the apartment, but Terzo paid it no heed whatsoever. He laid a hand on my arm and leant into me so he could lower his voice.

'I really am sorry,' he said. 'Father doesn't like to be kept waiting. Anyone else and I would have told them I have company …'

'It's fine. I told you. He's your father.'

He nodded slowly, still chewing on his bottom lip. Then, without warning, he leant in further to give me a swift, one-armed squeeze.

'I'll be in touch,' he said. 'Thank you for coming over.'

'Well. Thank you for the coffee. Again.'

That was two coffees to nil, I thought, as I made my way back to my room. A room I had thought would suit me well until I had learned where almost all of my course mates would be spending their doctorates.

 _These things have a habit of evening themselves out_ , had he not said?

Hm. Perhaps over several decades, I thought, as I picked up one of my new textbooks. I certainly doubted whether I would be able to match his level of generosity by the time both of us could call ourselves Doctor.


End file.
